I was out there in paradise, spending money like an idiot, eating and drinking, my only real expense being a car. I’d sold my Passat back in the desert and took that cash with me, so I was flush but I desperately needed wheels. I found this guy online, we talked for a while. Met him in a Best Buy parking lot. He had a Nissan Rogue, one of those little SUVs. It looked perfect. I drove it around the block, didn’t feel anything wrong. The guy looked shifty, maybe, but then again, everybody looks shifty when you’re about to hand them a pocketful of cash. I probably should have walked away, but I needed a car. So I gave him all my money, and that was it. The last I saw of him.
The car never felt right after that. It was like it had a bad soul. Then one weekend my daughter was visiting, and the damn thing just overheated while we were driving. What the fuck? A car from this century shouldn’t just overheat. So I go to an auto parts store, get some of that metal epoxy, find a crack in the radiator, and smear that gray shit all over it like a dumbass, thinking I’m a goddamn genius mechanic. Next thing I know, I drop her off at the airport, and on the way back home, the car just dies. Right in the middle of the road. I managed to get it towed to some garage, and the guy comes out, wiping his hands on a rag. He doesn’t even have to think about it. “Engine’s fried,” he says. “Cost you more to rebuild it than the thing’s worth. Take months.”
So, that was that. I took an Uber home and left the car there in his lot. Never touched it again. Never saw it again. Another ghost.
For a bit, one of my interns let me use his Hawaiian burner car. One of those beaters with a personality disorder. You had to sit a certain way, roll the window down exactly halfway, then turn the ignition just so, or it wouldn’t work. The gas gauge was a fucking liar, too. Half a tank meant you were running on fumes. It was the kind of car you just use and discard, leave it on the side of the road with the keys in it when you’re done. A true Hawaiian dumper.
I used that piece of shit to get to a “shake and bake” car lot. I’d already talked to them, my credit looked good enough. They offered me a Jeep Cherokee. Looked clean, looked nice. The monthly payments looked doable. I needed something reliable, I told myself. So I went for it.
Two weeks later, I fill it up with gas. I’m pulling out of the gas station, and the damn thing just stalls. Puts itself in park right there in the flow of traffic. Cars zipping past me, horns blaring. I get it restarted, the transmission light comes on. “Creeper mode,” it says. Couldn’t go more than ten miles an hour on the main fucking highway. A death trap. This happened over and over. I’d take it to the dealership, but the light would always be gone by the time I got there. Of course. It would only act out when I filled the tank all the way to the top. I figured out it was some sensor, some piece of cheap plastic bullshit. The solution was as pathetic as the problem: never fill the tank all the way up. And there I was, making monthly payments on that fucking lemon.
Then I take it for a free oil change my company offered. I get back to the office, park, and notice a pool of oil forming under the engine. I go back to the oil shop. “Oh,” the kid says, “sorry about that. Everything’s plastic on these new cars. We must have cross-threaded the plug. All fixed now.”
A few days later, I’m out on the east side with some young lady, spent the night at her place. Woke up in the morning, driving back on the North Shore, and the engine light comes on. I pull into an O’Reilly’s. “Dude,” the guy says, “your oil light’s on. You got no oil.” That fucking kid at the oil change place. The engine starts making that little metal-on-metal sound. Reading online, you know that once that idiot light comes on, it’s too late. It’s an American-made vehicle. The warning light doesn’t mean “warning.” It means “you’re fucked.”
So I get it back to the company mechanic. He gives me a call. “No bueno, man. This engine’s fried. Same old story.”
At that point, I was at the bottom. I had some guys I could call. I had these visions of dropping the Jeep off on the west side of Oahu, calling it in stolen four days later after it was stripped clean. Insurance fraud. But then I found out my insurance wouldn’t cover the whole thing. I’d still be stuck with a bill. I just couldn’t win.
So I called Mel. He was one of my foremen, always an accountable guy. “Dude,” he says, “I’ll hook you up.” He gets on the phone with his buddy, who talks to the mechanics. Mel calls me back. “Engine’s trashed,” he says. “But here’s what you do. I know a guy at a dealership. You use my name. You go buy the thickest goddamn oil you can find, stuff that looks like honey. You pour it in the engine so the bitch will run for at least fifteen minutes without making a sound. You drive it over there, you trade the hell out of it, and you take whatever they give you.”
It was a plan born of desperation and pure, gutter-level genius.
I borrowed a company truck and drove to a dealership on the other side of the island. I walked in, all cool, and name-dropped Mel. Something clicked. Suddenly I was a serious customer. “What can we get you into?” they ask, already eyeing me for some seventy-thousand-dollar truck with a mortgage payment.
“I want to test drive that Jetta,” I said. “The stick shift.”
The guy looks at me. “You sure? You can drive a stick?”
“Let me at it, man.”
The car had a nice little turbo, a good bump. I came back. “Love it. Let’s do it.”
They sit me down, start drafting the papers. Credit’s good. Life is great. Then, “What are you trading in?” “My Jeep Cherokee,” I say. “Oh, great, you have it with you?” “No,” I say, trying to sound casual. “Got the company truck today. It’s a Sunday. Can I just drop it off tomorrow?” He ends up giving me eight grand for that dead Jeep, sight unseen. I made sure to get all the papers signed right then and there. “Look,” I told the salesman, “I am so fucking busy tomorrow. I just want to come in, hand over the keys, and go. I don’t want to be molested or detained.” The guy, real smooth, says, “Dude, you just give me the keys. We’re good.”
That night, I had the dead Jeep towed to a Firestone right around the block from the dealership. It was after hours. The car was leaking oil so bad it wouldn’t have made it down the street. Once the tow truck was gone, I opened the hood. I poured in four quarts of that oil that was as thick as honey. I didn’t even know if it would work. I said a little prayer to whatever sick god was watching this whole show. I turned the key. The engine sounded good. Wow.
I quickly drove it around the corner, into the dealership lot, parked it as far away from the sales office as possible. I got the keys, walked over, signed the last paper with the cashier, and handed her the keys to the Jeep. The salesman comes out. “We’re all good?” he asks. “Yeah, man, thanks.” “Where’s your car at?” he asks. “Oh,” I say, pointing vaguely, “it’s right over there.” He hands me the keys to the Jetta. “Well, your new car’s over there as well,” he says. “You know what,” I say, “I gotta go.”
The Jetta was three car lengths away. And as I walked to it, I could see it. A river of thick, honey-colored oil, flowing from the bottom of my Jeep, making its way to the storm drain. I had to step over it. I hopped in my new car, and I actually got emotional. I started driving out of the parking lot, and I had to run over my own trail of oil. I could see it in the rearview mirror as the salesmen were outside, waving. “Good luck!” they yelled. “Thank you, man!”
I got out of there, made a right-hand turn, threw it in first, then second, then third, and I literally started crying. What the hell, dude? Did I just get away with this? It was insane. I owed so much money on that dead vehicle. I ended up paying off the rest of the loan and then some, just to make the ghost of it go away.
I got back to the office with the new car. Word spread. Amongst my Hawaiian friends, I was the new Captain Cook. The boss. The man who stuck it to The Man.
And I just thought about what my grandfather used to say. “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.” Write that down.
Goddamn right.
